There are some things humans can go without. We can lose a kidney or a lung, an arm or two and still live perfectly well. But some fish put us to shame. They can get by without stomachs.
One such fish is the stout longtom. The group it belongs to carries a more appropriate name: the needlefish. All needlefish lack stomachs. Their ancestors had them, but later they were lost.
The stout longtom can reach 1.3 meters in length, and lives near the sea surface. Like all needlefish, it can jump out of the water to escape its enemies. Tropical fishermen are sometimes injured by needlefish. In 1977, a 10-year-old Hawaiian boy was killed when a needlefish jumped through his brain. The longtom eats smaller fish. It teeth are not good at cutting fish into pieces, so it swallows fish whole.
Ryan Day from Australia and his colleagues wanted to know how the longtom digests its meaty meals without a stomach, so they ran some chemical tests about the fish.
Day’s results show that the longtom can consume food without the help of a stomach. It uses a special material called trypsin that can break down proteins without acid — although the approach is less efficient than using a stomach.
Because it’s a meat-eating animal, the longtom gets a lot of protein in its food, so it can afford this slightly less efficient system for absorbing it. Two plant-eating fish that Day studies actually had higher levels of trypsin in their body, as their food was low in protein.
Day thinks that the longtom and its stomachless relatives might actually have arrived at an energy-saving solution. He says that although the stomach is critical to many kinds of animal, the organ is “a fairly expensive organ to run”. This perhaps explains why some animals have got rid of theirs.
【小题1】What does the underlined phrase “get by” mean?

     Computer programmer David Jones makes 35,000 pounds a year designing new computer games, yet he cannot find a bank prepared to let him have a credit card (信用卡). Instead, he has been told to wait another two years, until he is 18.

The 16-year-old boy works for a small firm in Liverpool, where the problem of most young people of his age is finding a job. David’s firm puts two new games on the home market each month.

But David’s biggest headache is what to do with his money. In spite of his salary, made by inventing new programs within a quite short period of time, the bonus payments and profit-sharing (奖金和分红), he cannot drive a car, get some money from a bank to buy a house, or get credit cards.

He lives with his parents in their house in Liverpool, where his father is a bus driver. His firm has to pay ￡150 a month in taxi fares to get him the five miles to work and back every day because David cannot drive.

David got his job with the firm a year after leaving school with six 0-levels and working for a time in a computer shop. “I got the job because the people who run the firm knew I had already written some programs,” he said.

“I suppose 35,000 pounds sounds a lot but actually that’s not good enough. I hope it will come to more than that this year.” He spends some of his money on records and clothes, and gives his mother 20 pounds a week. But most of his spare time is spent working.

“Unfortunately, computing was not part of our studies at school,” he said. “But I had been studying it in books and magazines for four years in my spare time. I know what I wanted to do and never considered staying on at school. Most people in this business are fairly young, anyway.”

David added, “I would like to earn a million and I suppose early retirement (退休) is a possibility. You never know when the market might disappear.”

36. Why is David different from other young people of his age?

A. He earns a very high salary.

B. He has not a job.

C. He does not go out much.

D. He lives at home with his parents.

37. David’s greatest problem is ____________.

A. making the banks treat him as a grown-up

B. inventing computer games

C. spending his salary

D. learning to drive

38. He was hired by the firm because ____________.

A. he had worked in a computer shop

B. he had written some computer programs

C. he worked very hard

D. he had learned to use computers at school

39. He left school after taking six 0-levels because ____________.

A. he did not enjoy school

B. he wanted to work with computers and staying at school did not help him

C. he was afraid of getting too old to start computing

D. he wanted to earn a lot of money

40. Why does David think he might retire early?

A. One has to be young to write computer programs. www.7caiedu.cn

B. He wants to stop working when he is a millionaire.

C. He thinks computer games might not always sell so well.

D. He thinks his firm might go bad.

The first people who gave names to hurricanes were those who knew them best — the people of Puerto Rico. The small island of Puerto Rico is in the West Indies, off the coast of Florida. This is where all the hurricanes begin that strike the east coast of the United States. Often they pass near Puerto Rico or cross it on their way north. The people of Puerto Rico expect some of these unwelcome visitors every year. Each one is named after the Saint’s Day on which it arrives. Two of the most destructive storms were the Santo Ana in 1840 and the San Ciriaco in 1899.
Giving girls’ names to hurricanes is a fairly new idea. It all began with a story called “Storm”, written by George Stewart in 1941. In it a weatherman amused himself by naming storms after girls he knew. He named one Maria. The story describes how she Maria grew and developed, and how she changed the lives of people when she struck the United States.
Weathermen of the U.S. Army and Navy used the same system during World WarⅡ. They were studying weather conditions over the Pacific Ocean. One of their duties was to warn American ships and planes when a storm was coming. Whenever they spotted one, they gave it a girl’s name. The first one of the year was given a name beginning with [A]. The second one got a name beginning with [B]. They used all the letters from A to W, and still the storms kept coming. They had to use three lists from A to W to have enough names to go around. This was the first list of hurricane names that followed the alphabet. It served as a model for the system the Weather Bureau (局) introduced in 1942.
Before 1950 the Weather Bureau had no special system for naming hurricanes. When a hurricane was born down in the West Indies, the Weather Bureau simply collected information about it. It reported how fast the storm was moving and where it would go next. Weather reports warned people in the path of the hurricane, so that they could do whatever was necessary to protect themselves.
This system worked out fine as long as weather reports talked about only one hurricane at a time. But one week in September 1950 there were three hurricanes at the same time. The things began to get confused. Some people got the hurricanes mixed up and didn’t know which was which. This convinced the Weather Bureau that it needed a code for naming the storms in order to avoid confusion in the future.
1．Hurricanes were first named after the _________.
A. date on which they occurred                         
B. place where they began
C. amount of destruction they did                     
D. particular feature they have
2．The practice of giving girls’ names to hurricanes was started by _________.
A. a radio operator        B. an author                  C. a sailor                     D. local people
3．The purpose for which weathermen of the army and navy began using girls’ names for hurricanes was _________.
A. to keep information from the enemy
B. to follow the standard method of the United States
C. not given in the article
D. to remember a certain girl
4．The Weather Bureau began naming hurricanes because it would help them _________.
A. collect information more rapidly                  
B. warn people more efficiently
C. make use of military (军事的) records          
D. remember them

Computer programmer David Jones earned ￡35,000 a year designing new computer games, yet he cannot find a bank prepared to let him have a check card, he has been told to wait another two years until he is 18.

   He works for a small firm in Liverpool, where most young people of his age are finding jobs. David’s biggest headache is what to do with his money. Though he has high payment, he cannot drive a car, or get credit card(信用卡).

   David got his job four months ago, a year after leaving school with six O-levels（普通成绩）and working for a time in a computer shop. “I got the job because the people who run the firm knew I had already written some programs,” he said.

   “I suppose ￡35,000 sounds a lot but I hope it will come to more than that this year.” He spends some of his money on records and clothes, and gives his mother ￡20 a week as he lives with his parents. But most of his spare time is spent working.

   “Unfortunately, computing was not part of our studies at school, ” he said. “But I had been studying it in books and magazines for four years in my spare time. I knew what I wanted to do and never considered staying on at school. Most people in this business are fairly young, anyway. I would like to earn a million and I suppose early retirement(退休) is a possibility. You never know when the market might disappear.”

1.Why is David so different from other young people of his age?

A. He earns an extremely high payment

B. He has got a job.

C. He lives at home with his parents.

D. He does not go out much.

2.David’s greatest problem is that______.

A. he can’t be treated as an adult by the bank.

B. he doesn’t make as many games as he wishes.

C. he doesn’t know what to buy with the money.

D. he is too young to drive a car.

3.He was employed by the company because ____.

A. he had worked in a computer shop.

B. he had written some computer programs.

C. he is clever and works hard at his lessons.

D. he had learnt to use computers at school.

4.He left school after taking six O-levels because____.

A. he was afraid of getting too old to start computing.

B. he did not enjoy school.

C. he wanted to work with computers.

D. he wanted to earn a lot of money.

5.Why does David think he might retire early?

A. He thinks computer games might not always sell so well.

B. He wants to stop working when he is a millionaire.

C. One has to be young to write computer programs.

D. He thinks his firm might close down.

Computer programmer David Jones makes 35,000 pounds a year designing new computer games, yet he cannot find a bank prepared to let him have a credit card (信用卡). Instead, he has been told to wait another two years, until he is 18.

The 16-year-old boy works for a small firm in Liverpool, where the problem of most young people of his age is finding a job. David’s firm puts two new games on the home market each month.

But David’s biggest headache is what to do with his money. In spite of his salary, made by inventing new programs within a quite short period of time, the bonus payments and profit-sharing (奖金和分红), he cannot drive a car, get some money from a bank to buy a house, or get credit cards.

He lives with his parents in their house in Liverpool, where his father is a bus driver. His firm has to pay ￡150 a month in taxi fares to get him the five miles to work and back every day because David cannot drive.

David got his job with the firm a year after leaving school with six 0-levels and working for a time in a computer shop. “I got the job because the people who run the firm knew I had already written some programs,” he said.

“I suppose 35,000 pounds sounds a lot but actually that’s not good enough. I hope it will come to more than that this year.” He spends some of his money on records and clothes, and gives his mother 20 pounds a week. But most of his spare time is spent working.

“Unfortunately, computing was not part of our studies at school,” he said. “But I had been studying it in books and magazines for four years in my spare time. I know what I wanted to do and never considered staying on at school. Most people in this business are fairly young, anyway.”

    David added, “I would like to earn a million and I suppose early retirement (退休) is a possibility. You never know when the market might disappear.”

1.Why is David different from other young people of his age?

A. He earns a very high salary.            B. He has not a job.

C. He does not go out much.                 D. He lives at home with his parents.

2.David’s greatest problem is ____________.

A. making the banks treat him as a grown-up     B. inventing computer games

C. spending his salary                     D. learning to drive

3.He was hired by the firm because ____________.

A. he had worked in a computer shop     B. he had written some computer programs

C. he worked very hard                    D. he had learned to use computers at school

4.He left school after taking six 0-levels because ____________.

A. he did not enjoy school

B. he wanted to work with computers and staying at school did not help him

C. he was afraid of getting too old to start computing

D. he wanted to earn a lot of money

5.Why does David think he might retire early?

A. One has to be young to write computer programs.

B. He wants to stop working when he is a millionaire.

C. He thinks computer games might not always sell so well.

D. He thinks his firm might go bad.